


This is My Winter Song to You

by Ahigheroctave



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-01
Updated: 2012-11-01
Packaged: 2017-11-17 13:30:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/552075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ahigheroctave/pseuds/Ahigheroctave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A little voice inside his head tells him this is happiness, but he can't hear it over the denial. AU: Season 3 Nationals.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is My Winter Song to You

**Author's Note:**

> For Gleeverse over at LJ's Big Bang challenge.

They invite him because they know Vocal Adrenaline doesn't have a shot at winning without his experience and his painfully obvious talent (LA doesn't see it that way, it's chock full of beautiful people just like him). He comes because he loves winning more than anything (more than he loved  actually having feelings to sing about and being a part of something special). He doesn't know why he's walking around Time Square  at night (his hotel room isn't small and lonely and suffocating just like the California sunshine).  
  
He's walking past the Hard Rock Cafe when he sees a familiar blur of people.  
  
The first thing that catches his eye is a head full of long, white blond hair frosted with snowflakes. The girl looks so different from the last time he saw her, she's twirling around in the street. Her hand is held by a boy in a red letterman jacket, his grin so wide it almost reaches his Mohawk. There’s something so altered about them, so backwards from the people he remembers (a little voice inside his head tells him it’s happiness but he can’t hear it over the denial).  
  
He starts to notice the others, a familiar well-coiffed boy in a cheerleading jacket is holding the hand of  a tall, muscular type with a painfully obvious dye job. The shorter boy’s dimples are in full action as his voice pitches up about what a newfound inspiration he has for 80’s music (He can’t hear the sound of Turn Around in his head at all). The tall, want-to-be blond rolls his eyes but everyone can see the smile tugging at his lips.  
  
Two more cheerleaders are emerging, pinkies linked, with a heavier black girl, all three of them are singing a Katy Perry song as an Asian boy frantically tries to act out the lyrics in time. The girl with the blond ponytail tries to help him out, but they end up confusing each other. It doesn’t help that she can’t tell left from right. Soon enough they begin laughing too hard to continue (he can’t remember the last time he really laughed).  
  
He spots them last. They're the last to come out of the restaurant, no doubt because the two boys in question wanted more time to look at the various rock-and-roll knick-knacks. The girl he formerly knew as Goth has no streaks in her hair and is wearing almost normal clothes, it scares him a little how natural she looks. She also seems a little tentative as she pushes the boy in the wheelchair, and he wonders what happened between them while he was gone (he feels a pang of something, but it definitely isn’t missing these people. They were never his friends).  
  
And then there's Rachel. She's even more beautiful than he remembered. She's wearing a hat with a panda face on the front, little tassels hanging down on either side and a white pea coat covers her entire body. She's giggling at something, he realizes. And that's when he notices Finn's there, his face lit up in utter glee. He’s saying something about drums, and moving his hands spastically. And Rachel looks at him, so dumbstruck with l-l-lo… Who plays the drums anyways? Everyone knows the percussion section is for people destined to end up working in gas stations at 30 (he’s not jealous, the piano is just far superior).  
  
They all walk by him one by one, without so much as a word of acknowledgement. This is the price of being better, he tells himself (he doesn’t contemplate that the cost of being alone is too high, not even a little). It’s as if singing a few Queen songs and taking his rightful place on the throne of Vocal Adrenaline has erased his existence (or maybe just his heart). They unite in their ignorance, refusing even to fall divided.  
  
Then she sees him, while Finn is tugging on the tassel of that hat that looks like it belongs on a five-year-old (He doesn’t wish he could put the white material between his pointer and his thumb, or remember what her chocolate hair feels like under his fingers). She gapes in recognition for a slow, satisfying second where those cheeks of hers sag and her eyes go wide (he still effects her, she still remembers him). And then she turns away again, whispers something in the tall, pale oaf’s ear (he can probably even feel her breathe). The whole group starts to move faster and faster and he can see them dashing away from him, giggling and screeching (why are they all so ecstatic? Why?). He can see the intertwined Cheerios leading them into the beauty store and then they’re gone.  
  
(Jesse St. James never thought he’d feel so alone standing on the corner of Broadway, not that he’d ever admit it to you. Not that he’d even admit it to himself.)

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this before Sectionals had happened in Season 2 and we still thought the show was going to fix itself and reward our investment in the original characters. It didn't turn out quite like I hoped, so this is pretty firmly AU now.


End file.
